Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 91434 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91434 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Chapter Six
EVERLEIGH
I walk out of the bathroom in the bathrobe I’ve had since I was seventeen. It’s white and plush with blue, red, and yellow hearts all over it. I got it for Christmas one year, I think, or maybe it was my birthday. My hair is wrapped up in a white towel as I walk down the steps to go find my mother.
I’m halfway down when I call her name, “Momma.” I look at the chair in the living room that faces the front window, seeing it empty. My eyes go to the kitchen right off the living room, and it is empty, with dinner dishes already dried and put away. I get to the bottom of the steps and look out of the side door that leads to the covered porch area. “Momma.” I stick my head out the screen door, seeing the two rocking chairs empty. “Momma.” I start to make my way to her bedroom when the bathroom door opens.
“What are you hooting and hollering about?” she scoffs. “Can’t a woman go to the bathroom?”
“I wasn’t hooting and hollering. I was wondering where you were.”
“We don’t live in Buckingham Palace”—she walks over to her chair—“so I couldn’t really go far.”
I point at her. “With you, you never know. You could have escaped and gone to the bakery.”
“I should have.” She sits down in her chair and grabs her glass of water from the side table. “It would serve you right for hiding my car keys.”
“I didn’t hide them,” I remind her. “I put them in a safe place that was not near you or where you could find them.” Walking over to the fridge, I pull it open. “Are you hungry?”
“Oh, good Lord.” She throws her hands up. “Will you stop hovering over me?”
“This isn’t hovering.” I grab the sweet tea pitcher out of the fridge. “This is being thoughtful and wondering if my mother is hungry.”
“We ate dinner not too long ago,” she snaps, “so I’m fine.”
“What do you want to do tonight?” I ask, and she just looks at me.
“Why don’t you get out of my hair?” she asks. “Go out and maybe leave me alone for a bit.” She’s been home from the hospital for two days. It’s been two days of her being, as she calls it, cooped up. Two days of her telling me she’s fine and it’s all hogwash.
“But then what fun will you have?” I pour the sweet tea in a glass as I stare at her, and she glares at me. I’m about to fire back at her when the doorbell rings. “I wonder who that could be.” I walk around the island and toward the front door.
“Tell whoever it is I’m not here,” she whisper-hisses. I just roll my eyes as I pull open the door. For the past two days, we’ve gotten visits from practically everyone in the neighborhood, trying to see my mother and wish her well. She was very polite to their face, but once the door was closed, she would bitch at me for letting them in. I pull open the front door, expecting to be greeted by one of the neighbors again, but I don’t know why I’m shocked when I see Dr. Oliver. Instead of his regular doctor attire, he’s wearing jeans and a white button-down with a leather jacket, and I think my jaw hits the floor. Right behind him is a motorcycle that has to be his. “Dr. Oliver,” I finally mumble and unlock the screen door.
“Don’t let him in here,” my mother hisses from the side as I push the screen door open, and he walks up the two steps to come into the house.
“Hey, Everleigh,” he greets me quietly, coming in and then looking at my mother. “Madeline.”
“Oliver,” she grumbles with her teeth clenched together, “what are you doing here?” Her eyes are big, and she goes from looking at him to looking at me. I have to roll my lips. She looks like I did when I was caught making out with Brock on the couch once when she was at the store. Of course, I was seventeen and not in my fifties.
“I came to see how you were doing.” He shrugs off his jacket and hangs it over the banister before walking over and bending to kiss her cheek. I have seen my mother look at me with murder in her eyes, but I’ve never seen this type of murder. “What have you been doing?” He ignores her look as he sits down on the couch next to the chair.
“I’m going to go”—I point up toward the stairs—“and get dressed, and then I think I’m going to go see Autumn.”
“That sounds like fun,” Oliver says. “I can watch over your mother.”
“You won’t be watching over anything,” my mother snaps at him, “because you’ll be leaving.” She looks at him, then me. “And you should go out, and then I’m going to go and lie down and rest.” I nod at her as I see Oliver grin.